While We're Apart
by RazberryBreeze
Summary: When Logan leaves for London, only two weeks pass before Rory starts to receive haunting pink postcards about his behavoir. Already struggling to adjust with his absence, she is left to wonder about the real worth of their relationship.
1. The Pink Postcard

**Part I:  
The Pink Postcard.**

Rory Gilmore had been waiting all day for just one simple phone call. Just one.

Two weeks ago, her boyfriend, Logan, had left for London.

The last she had spoken to him was earlier that morning, and after his promise to call her back before seven that night, she was still waiting. It was now nearing nine o'clock.

"Darn you, Logan," she muttered, disappointed.

Rory leaned against the counter of the kitchen inside their apartment and flipped open her cell phone, the number she then dialed being one she had called countless times over the years.

The second line rang four times. Growing impatient, Rory tapped her fingers on the granite countertop.

Finally, her mother picked up.

"Hey Rory," Lorelai said. "What's wrong?"

Rory's eyebrows went together in confusion. "How did you know something was wrong?"

"Oh don't you know?" Lorelai replied in an innocent voice. "It's a mother daughter thing."

"It is?"

"Yes. Besides, it's late on a Tuesday night. Almost nine o'clock."

Rory was silent for a moment as she thought about her mother's strange, yet rarely wrong logic. Most of the time she liked to try and sort it out with real reason, but something _was_ wrong, and she was calling to complain, after all.

"Logan said he would call me before seven, and its almost two hours past that promise now. He knows since we last talked this morning that I was looking forward to hearing from him again."

"Well, have you tried getting a hold of him?"

"No…" Rory sighed. "But he's never missed a call time at all in the last two weeks he's been gone… maybe something happened."

"I doubt it," Lorelai replied, then added a bit more enthusiastically, "but if it makes you feel better, hun, he probably hasn't called you back because Mitchum has him working over time. Logan's probably ate his cell phone out of pure boredum. That, and I bet the kid doesn't even get a lunch break."

Rory sighed, again.

Life... it just seemed so hard without him. The phone calls were the only means of contact with him she had to hold on to, and now even that was beginning to fail.

"I don't want to be in this apartment anymore... can I come over?" she asked, turning slightly to look at the clock above the stove. "If I stay here any longer, I'll end up going crazy."

"Of course you can. But first, what kind of crazy. Edger Allen Poe crazy or Emily Gilmore crazy?"

"Both," Rory replied affirmatively.

"Then get your butt over here! I'll see you in bit, kid."

Rory snapped her cell phone shut and walked out of the kitchen, toward the front door. She slipped her phone away in her purse and pulled it, along with a light jacket, off a fancy wooden coat hanger.

After making sure all the lights were shut off, she stepped outside into the hallway, and closed the door behind her. Taking a second, she closed her eyes and inhaled.

_Logan... why did you have to leave? We had really started to become something..._

Despite the incident with the bridesmaids, which had really been just a horrible misunderstanding, Rory had concluded not long ago that she would always love him, in some way. Christmas was nearing anyhow.

At least Mitchum had garanteed they'd return from London for the holidays.

_Only two more months and I'll see him again..._

Opening her eyes, she took a step forward.

Something scuffled beneath her feet. Rory paused and looked down in confusion, bending over to pick up a small rectangular piece of paper. Examining one side, she discovered it was a post card, and that it was addressed to her.

Most of them were decorated with some kind of scenery, some beautiful tropical setting or resort, but there was nothing... except hot pink. Glancing at the return address, she saw it had come from London. And not only that, but it matched the same address of the place in which Logan was staying.

Before she read the pretty handwriting on the other side, somehow, Rory knew she wasn't going to like this.

* * *

"Hey stranger," Lorelai greeted after Rory walked through the front door.

She was sitting on the couch in her pajamas, a pizza box on the table in front of her along with poptarts and marshmellows.

Rory wore a mixture of a confused and hurt expression as she made her way into the living room and sat heavily on the couch. Her gaze stayed solidly on the coffee table before her, scanning over the delicious things her mother had put there.

Unfortunately, her appitite had disappeared.

Sensing that her daughter was upset, Lorelai grabbed a marshmellow and handed it to her. Rory slowly accepted it.

"You can always vent to me, you know that. What's wrong? There has to be more to this than Logan forgetting to call you."

With a heavy sigh, she said, "As I was leaving the apartment to come here… I found this."

Reaching into the pocket of her coat, Rory withdrew the small, hot pink postcard, which she had folded. Lorelai furrowed her eyebrows and accepted the strange thing from her, unfolding it and reading the pretty handwriting.

Once she was finished, Lorelai re-folded the post card, her expression serious.

"Are you sure he's worth all this?"

Rory shook her head. "I don't know. I mean, I love him mom, but will it always be one thing after another?"

She rose from the couch, wanting nothing more than to sleep suddenly. To forget about him and pain she felt, at least, until morning.

"I'm just going to go to bed," she added, before her mother could reply. "The paper has been really wareing me out lately anyway, and I haven't been sleeping well."

Lorelai sat in silence as her daughter left the room, and the sound of her bedroom door closing broke the silence for a moment. So many things she would have loved to have said to her-if only Rory had been willing to talk about it.

"Logan," she murmured to herself. "Darn you."

* * *

In her room, Rory changed into a pair of old pajamas before she crawled beneath the covers of her bed. It felt good to be home. It felt better than she thought it would.

Her cell-phone was on mute in her purse, and from where she was, she couldn't see that the front of it had just lit up.

Logan was calling.

"No," she said quietly, determined. "I'm not going to lay here and cry about this. I'm home... I'm where I need to be."

_Rory,_

_If you think Logan acted horribly after your supposed breakup when you found out about everything at his sisters wedding, then you should see how openly he acts here, now that you can't "have him on a leash" anymore, or so he says. Oops, I think I've already said too much. Anyway, wish you the best at Yale. _

And that was the content upon the little pink postcard.


	2. Emails

Pushing the covers off slowly, Rory began to wake up. The sun was coming through the shades and eventually she sat up along the side of her bed, taking a moment to rub her eyes.

What a night had passed.

Thankfully, however, she had managed to sleep decently.

Feeling bittersweet, Rory grasped her purse, the Burkin bag, and left her bedroom to step out into the kitchen. Lorelai sat at the table, an entire display of breakfast food from Luke's stretched out before her. She smiled as she settled her gaze on Rory. Her hair was twisted into a bun, and she was still comfortable in the pajamas she had wore the night before.

Raising her eyebrows at the large breakfast, Rory pulled out her chair and sat down.

"Morning hun."

"What's all this?"

"I was worried about you after you went to bed last night, so I figured I'd wake up early and bring you home some Luke's. How are you feeling?"

Rory shrugged and set her purse on the table, reaching to fill the empty plate on the table with bacon and eggs. Truthfully, she didn't know how she felt right then, about him.

"I feel alright, I guess. I've actually considered that maybe the postcard was some kind of joke."

Lorelai laughed shortly. "What? Well whoever sent it has a horrible sense of humor."

"I know, but I doubt Logan hasn't met other people in London who like to goof around. He's notorious for pulling pranks, so maybe when someone found out he had a girlfriend, they sent the postcard as a way to get him back for something."

Rory watched as her mother shrugged, not too convinced by the theory.

"I guess anything's possible," she replied. "But couldn't they have just stuck his bra in the freezer?"

Rory laughed and munched on a piece of bacon.

"What did you bring your purse out here for?"

"Oh, my cell phone is in it. I was going to check and see if I had any missed calls."

"From Logan?"

"Or Yale. The newspaper has been crazy lately. Paris has been trying to get Doyle to implement a new bell system."

"A what?"

"Exactly."

* * *

Rory stared at the computer screen, not sure how to conclude her article about new dorm policies for the Yale Daily News. Glancing away, she observed the loud and busy newsroom, thinking she might have better luck if she left and tried to work somewhere else.

The final deadline was tomorrow, and almost all the editors scrambled around to harass their writers into finishing.

"Gilmore," Doyle said suddenly as he passed by her desk. "Do you have that article finished?"

Rory sat up. "No," she admitted. "But I'll have it in your mailbox by tonight."

The editor-in-chief sighed in relief and continued on to his desk, his forehead covered in sweat. Rory looked back to her word document, feeling just as desperate.

It wasn't the loud or busy atmosphere of the newsroom that was distracting her.

It was the thought of Logan, and the strange little postcard.

Really, who had the nerve…?

Reaching down into her purse, Rory rummaged through the contents. After finally locating her phone, she checked it for the first time and discovered that around ten thirty the night before, she had missed a call.

_Why can't you just be satisfied with me?_

Sighing, her thumb hovered over the OK button, ready to redial _his_ number.

But suddenly, her gaze settled on Logan's old desk across the room. An urge filling her, she snapped her phone shut and walked over, slowly sitting down in the chair. Steven, the editor who now filled the spot, was apparently gone.

Perhaps he had left for the bathroom or to interview, but wherever he was, Rory was glad for it.

She logged off of his account and onto Logan's, deciding to follow the crazy idea of searching through any of his old emails, if he had any. Opening up the staffs emailing program, she was intrigued to discover that there were many.

A few minutes into her search, one of them caught her eye.

"I can't wait until you're finally here, Logan…" Rory murmured, repeating the text she read. "My number is 234-8793... Call me when you're in town… Elizabeth."

_Elizabeth?_

Rory looked up for a moment, paranoid someone may have been watching her. Thankfully, everyone else was still in their own state of havoc. Far too absorbed to notice her snooping.

Having no idea about whether or not the email even related to his trip to London, she still reached for the small yellow stack of post-its on Steve's desk and jotted down the name and number. Already Rory wanted to blame Elizabeth, whoever she was, for the postcard.

But unfortunately, there was no evidence to really do so.

Leaning back in the computer chair, Rory smiled a little.

"Well Watson," she said quietly. "It looks as though we have a clue, although elementary, really."

* * *

**Note:** Thanks to all those who review! It keeps me inspired :] Hope you liked this installment! (Sorry if its a little short...)


	3. The Second

**Part III  
The Second**

That night in the apartment, Rory lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, waiting to feel tired. Despite a busy day and the want to sleep, her body seemed unable.

She eventually rolled onto her side and closed her eyes, thankful not to be in a dorm, but instead in her own pad, where it was quiet.

And somewhat lonely.

Close to half an hour passed before Rory finally began to drift off. But because the timing for things certain things is almost never right, her cell phone rang.

Always reliable.

Sighing, she sat up slowly and crossed the room to reach her pink Birkin. It lay near of pile of books, ones she had read, but yet to return to one of the many Yale libraries. After pulling out her phone, Rory answered the call.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end was bittersweet to hear.

"Hey Ace. Thought I'd call you before you went to bed."

She smiled a little. "You reached me just in time, Logan."

"How've you been? I called you two days ago."

"Oh... I know, sorry I didn't return the call. Things have just been... weird, lately."

Rory walked back to the bed and sat on the edge, one leg beneath her. The urge to ask him about the postcard was almost overwhelming, but she knew she had to wait for the right moment, whenever it came along, or if it even existed.

"What do you mean? Everything fine at Yale?"

"Yes... everything's fine there." For a second Rory held her breath, thinking it might be the only way she could stop herself from blurting her real thoughts.

_No. Not the right time..._

"Ah, Logan? This might sound a little strange, but, there's something I need to ask you."

_Oops._

"Yeah? What's that?"

"I received-well, who's Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth? I don't know who you're talking about, Ace. What's her last name?"

"It didn't say in the email," Rory mumbled in response. .

"What email?" Logan had barely understood her.

"I just... found an email of yours, Logan. Some girl named Elizabeth gave you her number and said she couldn't wait until you came to town. What town and when, I have no idea. It didn't say."

There was a sudden silence on his end.

Rory's eyes widened, and her heart started to pound. Maybe he was hiding something, and she had stumbled across it.

"Logan? Why are you quiet?"

"I'm trying to remember the email the email you're talking about," he replied, his voice mixed with laughter. "But no luck, Rory."

She sighed a little in relief. Ok, perhaps it was _nothing_, only elementary, after all.

"Why did you want to know about it?"

Logan's voice was calm, but she could tell he was serious. Feeling stupid, Rory ran a hand through her hair and lay back on the bed.

"No reason. I'd feel better if you just forgot about it. But hey, why let me control the conversation. How's London?"

"Everything I thought it would be and more, minus all the work my father has me doing most of the time."

"Well, I'm sure you've found the party people, right?"

"Who would I be if not the party-seeker, Ace."

"Pulled any pranks someone wants to get you back for?" Once again, she had mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'm really glad everything is going well for you, and I miss you. I'm pretty tired though. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Absolutely. My father has me in a conference most of the day, so promise not to hesitate."

Rory laughed. "I promise. Bye Logan."

She closed her phone. And after placing it on the night stand, she got up and changed into pajamas, all while reviewing their conversation. Everything about him had seemed cool and collected, not at all as if he was trying to hide something.

Which was good, because he could be trusted now. Logan knew well enough what consequences were in store if he messed up again.

As for the postcard, by the time she fell asleep, and slept undistrubed, Rory hadn't come up with a conclusion. Except that it had been and still was a horrible annoyance.

* * *

A while past noon the following day, Rory walked around the apartment fixing and straightening anything that would keep her mind off the fact that she hadn't yet figured out how to enjoy her Saturday. Not only was that irritating, but every now and then she couldn't help but glance at her cell phone.

It was still content on the night stand.

_Maybe I should call him now. Or maybe I should wait. What time is it in London anyway?_

Rory took a moment to do the math and then smiled. London was five hours ahead of her time. It was twelve-thirty, so for Logan, it was only five-thirty. Undoubtably he would be in a conference by that hour.

Picking up her phone, she dialed his number. Unfortunately though, after several rings, he didn't answer. Grimly, Rory snapped her phone shut.

The apartment looked just as drab as it had before.

_I can't stay. I really will go crazy... _

Snatching her keys, she left a few minutes after, already feeling refreshed as she opened the door. Shopping was the answer. Shopping with a bit of splurging as well. But to soon, her inspiration for happiness was cut short.

A second post card lay at her feet.

Rory had noticed it before taking another step. Slowly she bent over to pick it up, her heart beginning to race as it had so often lately. Grasping the sturdy paper, she turned it over in her hand.

* * *

The Blue Deli was certainly a strange place. Rory sat alone at a small table by the window, taking in the atmosphere and scene of the place.

"What's it like?" Lorelai asked.

"Very blue," Rory said into her phone. "The floor, the tables, walls, pictures... everything."

"The same shade? Because you know, maybe you've just slipped into another demension."

"No, there are different shades. I can't believe I never noticed this place before. All this time I've been at the apartment, it's only been a few minutes away."

At the other end of the room, a server walked out of a dark blue door and started to approach her table.

"I'll call you back later, mom, ok?"

"Alright. But if some very old guy hands you a guitar and wants to paint your picture, say yes."

"Will do. Bye."

Had it not been for the sake of the server, Rory would have stayed on the line and had more appreciation toward the Picasso reference.

"What would you like?" the waiter asked.

"I'm actually not hungry, just waiting for someone."

He nodded and left her table. Rory sighed and leaned back in her chair, feeling as blue as the deli. How long would she have to be there?

For a few minutes she stared out the window. Several people passed on the street; none of them she knew. Until...

Standing from her chair, she felt an immediate rush of adrenaline. Hastly Rory made it outside before the familiar face became lost in the crowd.

"Hey!" she called.

The tall boy turned around. When he saw her, he too was surprised, but that only lasted a few moments before his expression hardened. Rory furrowed her eyebrows.

"Dean?"

_

* * *

__Rory Dear,_

_Hello again. Logan is quite convincing, isn't he? Most of us know he has a girlfriend, but like I said, he's very persuasive. Go to the Blue Deli. And keep going there until you see someone you know. He'll have some answers you seek. _


	4. Perhaps, A Friend

**Part IV**  
**Perhaps, A Friend**

"You know nothing about the postcards?"

Rory tried to keep up with Dean's pace as he walked along the street with long, quick strides, but he was simply moving too fast.

"Please, Dean! Slow down and answer me."

He stopped abruptly. Rory paused and worked a little to catch her breath, her gazing meeting his. His eyes were still unforgiving as he looked at her, but for the time being, she had to ignore the fact they hadn't exactly ended on a good note in the past.

"What Rory, I already told you, I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't?"

"No."

"But the last one I received said-"

"Listen, I have to go. Sorry I couldn't help you."

Rory wrinkled her nose as he turned to leave, his sorry having been a sarcastic one. If only he could understand that she would have left with him that night at her grandparents house, the night their relationship ended, for the second time, badly.

Because of her caring nature, her heart started to ache for him again. Poor Dean. She had broke his heart twice and assisted in his divorce, all for nothing it seemed. Weaving through the crowd that had started to develop between them, Rory called to him again.

"Dean! Wait! I want to say something."

With great reluctance, he stopped a second time and turned around. When Rory reached him, she stared boldly into his eyes. He still looked like the Dean she remembered, so maybe she could find the one she needed to talk to.

"Forget the postcards. I just… I'm so sorry for our past. Only the bad times, I mean, not the good ones. You were truly amazing."

His eyes wandered from hers and focused on a vender across the street. He had heard all of this before. But that was Rory, and her will to make things right, even when they should just be let go. Sighing, Dean's anger subsided a little, and he ran a hand through his hair.

"You've said all this before," he replied calmly.

"I know. But the last time we broke up Dean… it just, wasn't fair."

The memory of that night was one he had always avoided thinking about.

"I tried to have you once, and when we got back together after Lindsey and I divorced I convinced myself I would keep you-that no _Jess _or any other guy would get in the way again-but that night, it was just our lives, or I don't know, maybe fate that finally made me realize it was time to give up on us."

Rory broke his gaze and peered down at the sidewalk. Her throat was becoming tight, and tears started to blur the cement beneath her. She felt stupid for crying about what had happened between them so long ago, but Dean's confession combined with the stress of the postcards collapsed on her.

"I really loved you," she admitted, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. "If that even means anything now. But Dean, I did. Now I'm just struggling with these stupid postcards."

The part of him that remembered the Rory he had once been with wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he remained still, a faint sympathetic gaze all he could offer.

"Yeah, what about those?"

"What?"

"You asked me if I knew anything about them, but you never explained what they were."

Rory shook her head. "Just a cruel prank." Hopefully. "The one I got today told me to wait at the Blue Deli for someone I knew who was going to pass by. He'd have answers for me."

"About what?"

Feeling embarrassed, she didn't want to admit to him, especially, her boyfriend troubles.

"It's not important, I'm ok. What are you doing here in New Haven?"

"I moved here a while ago from Stars Hollow."

"Why? I thought Tom was keeping you busy."

"He was. There was just…"

Dean trailed, and Rory then understood. "Too many memories?"

"Yeah."

A short, somewhat awkward silence passed between them. But eventually, Dean turned to leave again.

"Do you still have my number in your phone?" he asked, reserved.

Rory blinked, then nodded. "Yes, actually… why?"

He shrugged. "Well, bye Rory."

Before long, she could no longer watch him as he walked away, for he disappeared into the crowd. She sighed to herself and said quietly, "Bye Dean."

For a few minutes she remained where she was, waiting to see if another familiar face that was meant to be there appeared. But unfortunately, Rory saw no one else. Turning, she left her spot on the sidewalk and continued back to hers and Logan's apartment, only one thought in mind.

Dean had been the perfect boyfriend, and until death stopped her, she was going to fight for such a relationship again.

"I'll wait a little longer at the Blue Deli," she muttered. "But Logan, soon, I'm coming to London."


End file.
